He met his longtime friend and collaborator Alex Kurtzman when both were 17-year-old students at Crossroads, a privately funded school in Santa Monica, California.[3] The first time they came across each other was in a film class,[4] where they discovered each other's love for movies. The duo found that they had a number of things in common, as Kurtzman had previously lived in Mexico City and the two could relate. Orci later called him a "honorary Hispanic".[5] Orci went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin.[3] The duo got together once again, and began to write scripts. These included one called Misfortune Cookies which Orci described as "loosely autobiographical",[6] and Last Kiss, which Kurtzman said was their version of The Breakfast Club but was set in a lunatic asylum.[6]

The duo modelled their relationship on writers Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, but were much closer friends rather than just writing partners. They took the approach that they were in a band together and purposely studied teams to discover why they break up, and Kurtzman later explained in 2009 that "One big thing that makes the wheels start to wobble is when someone feels that the contribution isn't 50-50. We make sure we live up to the partnership. If we didn't, we wouldn't have lasted this long."[7]

They received their break in writing for films in 2004, with the Michael Bay film The Island. While this wasn't an overwhelming success, they were brought back for Bay's following film - Transformers which took $710 million at the box office.[8] Following their work on that film, the duo were brought in to revise the script for Zack Snyder's Watchmen,[10] in an uncredited capacity.[11] They worked once more with Abrams, on Mission: Impossible III.[12]

In the period between 2005 and 2011, the films written by Kurtzman and Orci grossed more than $3 billion, leading to Forbes describing them as "Hollywood's secret weapons".[8] They started to become so busy with their screenwriting careers that they needed to write in collaboration with other writers due to the number of projects they were involved in. For example, on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, they teamed up with Ehren Kruger,[6] who took over from them on the writing duties for the Transfomers franchise from Transformers: Dark of the Moon onwards.[13]

Orci's first credit solely as a producer came with the film Eagle Eye, where he worked once again along Kurtzman. He said in an interview with the magazine Extra that he had previously been involved in productions where the producers had writing backgrounds and had looked to them for help, and he was happy to provide that same support to the writers on the film.[5] The director of the film, D. J. Caruso, praised the duo saying that "What's unusually cool about them is that they have maintained the producer-writer power that they earned in television and carried that over into the feature film area, and that is extremely rare."[7] Following their work on Eagle Eye, they were executive producers on the Sandra Bullock film, The Proposal.[7]

Despite their film careers, Orci and Kurtzman continued to create television series. These included Sleepy Hollow, which they developed alongside Phillip Iscove. They pitched the series to a number of networks,[14] and was taken up by Fox TV.[15] Orci took five years to bring the series Matador to television, with it originating from a conversation with his cousin Andrew. It was created for Robert Rodriguez's El Rey Network, and Rodriguez's one demand of the show was that he could direct the pilot episode. Orci later explained in an interview that it was an easy decision, and he needed to pretend to consider it.[16]

They also worked together as executive producers on the animated television series, Transformers: Prime, due to their involvement with the live action movies. Following the end of the series they were hopeful to be involved in a future animated series based on the premise, which Orci saw less like a reboot of the show and more of a continuation in a different guise. He felt that while Prime was sophisticated, there were concerns that it was leaving younger viewers behind because of the complexity and intensity.[17]

After working with him on Alias and Fringe, Orci and Kurtzman continued working with J. J. Abrams (pictured) on films such as Mission Impossible III and Star Trek.

Orci and Kurtzman were asked to write the script for a new Star Trek film, but initially turned it down despite Orci being a fan of the series.[6] But Orci suggested rebooting the timeline as seen previously in the films and television series,[18] and adding the return of Leonard Nimoy as Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series.[6] He considered the first two films in the reboot series to be the origin story for the crew, and that the third film will start where the crew was at the beginning of Star Trek: The Original Series.[19] Orci felt that the relationship between the James T. Kirk and the younger Spock was reflective of the partnership of himself and Kurtzman, he said that "We didn't even realize we were writing about ourselves until we were halfway through the script, that was a little embarrassing.[7]

As of June 2009, Star Trek was the biggest grossing film at the domestic box-office in the United States, resulting in a sequel being greenlit by the studio and Kurtzman and Orci being asked to write it.[20] The studio set aside a larger budget for the sequel, which was revealed by Orci in an interview with TrekMovie.com.[21] Orci ruled out the "hero quitting" staple of a second movie, which had featured in the Transformers sequel, saying that the crew of the Enterprise were committed and that type of story doesn't have to apply to all sequels.[22] During the buildup to the film, called Star Trek Into Darkness, Orci was one of the production team who didn't give much away about the villain in the film and denied that Benedict Cumberbatch was to play Khan Noonian Singh.[23][24]

The criticism of the sequel resulted in Orci posting controversial comments on a Star Trek fan site. In response to a fan upset over Into Darkness, Orci said: "STID has infinitely more social commentary than Raiders in every Universe, and I say that with Harrison Ford being a friend. You lose credibility big time when you don’t honestly engage with the FUCKING WRITER OF THE MOVIE ASKING YOU AN HONEST QUESTION. You prove the cliche of shitty fans. And rude in the process. So, as Simon Pegg would say: FUCK OFF!"[25] He later apologized and deactivated his Twitter account.[26]

In April 2014, Orci and Kurtzman confirmed to Variety that they are no longer going to work together on film projects but will still work together only on television.[9][27] Kurtzman wanted to be more involved in the Spider-Man film franchise, while Orci was linked to the directorial role for Star Trek 3.[9] Orci confirmed later that year in July that he was not involved in the production of Spider-Man 3 alongside Kurtzman.[28] Orci and Kurtzman's K/O Paper Products continues to operate as a production company within CBS Television Studios, and announced that they were working on a pilot based on the 2011 film Limitless.[29]

Prior to the split of Kurtzman and Orci, the duo were lined up to write the third film in the new Star Trek series.[30] In May 2014, Skydance and Paramount Pictures announced that Orci was to direct the third installment of the Star Trek reboot franchise,[31] after Abrams moved on to direct Star Wars: Episode VII. This would have marked Orci's directorial debut, and he was to write the script alongside co-writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay.[32] Due to his commitment to Star Trek 3, he dropped out of a new Power Rangers film in which he would have been executive producer.[33] But on December 5, it was announced he would no longer be directing the film.[34] He remains credited as a producer on the film,[35] and was replaced by Doug Jung and cast member Simon Pegg as the script writers after Orci's initial script was dropped.[36][37] Orci was replaced as director by Justin Lin, who had previously directed films in the The Fast and the Furious franchise.[36]

The Hollywood Reporter listed Orci as one of the 50 most powerful Latinos in Hollywood of 2007.[38] His first sole accolade was the Norman Lear Writer's Award at the Imagen Awards in 2009. He described the experience of receiving an award without Kurtzman as "bizarre".[4] Orci has also been previously awarded the Raul Julia Award for Excellence by the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.[39]

Orci and Kurtzman were both honored by the nonprofit organization Chrysalis, alongside Josh Lieberman and Katherine Pope at the Butterfly Ball on June 8, 2013. The organisation raises money for homeless people and low-income families, Orci said that "When you hear the life stories from people right here in our own community, who are clients at Chrysalis, and when you come to learn of their lowest moments and how Chrysalis has led to their proudest triumphs, it's easy to see why this local organization is so impactful."[40]